A chimpanzee named Bruno had been taught American Sign Language. But instead of answering the researcher’s question, he signed two words: KEY OUT.
The researcher asked him to sign again. Bruno shifted his body so that he was facing him more directly and raised his hands to make his meaning unmistakable.
OUT KEY OUT.
The researcher understood. He signed back: CAN’T SORRY CAN’T.
Bruno’s shoulders dropped, and he walked to the back of his cage. Bruno understood that he was confined. He knew that a key could open the cage. He wanted to leave, and he deliberately communicated that desire to someone he believed could help him. He asked to be freed. He remained confined at the biomedical facility, where he eventually died.
PETER SINGER: A chimpanzee named Bruno had been taught American Sign Language. But instead of answering the researcher’s question, he signed two words: KEY OUT.
The researcher, Mark Bodamer, asked him to sign again. Bruno shifted his body so that he was facing Bodamer more directly and raised his hands to make his meaning unmistakable.
OUT KEY OUT.
Bodamer understood. He signed back: CAN’T SORRY CAN’T.
Bruno’s shoulders dropped, and he walked to the back of his cage.
His story was presented to the Michigan courts because it shows what bodily liberty can mean to a chimpanzee. Bruno understood that he was confined. He knew that a key could open the cage. He wanted to leave, and he deliberately communicated that desire to someone he believed could help him.
He asked to be freed.
He remained confined at the biomedical facility, where he eventually died.
Bruno’s story is key to understanding the case that recently came before the Michigan Supreme Court.
The case concerns seven chimpanzees held at the roadside zoo called the DeYoung Family Zoo in Wallace, Michigan. The Nonhuman Rights Project, which brought the legal action on their behalf, calls them the DeYoung Prisoners.
The seven DeYoung Prisoners cannot make that request in American Sign Language. Nor can they walk into a courtroom and ask a judge to hear them. The Nonhuman Rights Project is asking the law to consider their claim to the fundamental right that all persons have, not to be deprived of their bodily liberty without sufficient cause.
Only one of the seven is publicly identified by name. Louie was brought to the DeYoung zoo in 2010, when he was six weeks old. He was used for at least the first two years of his life as a prop in paid photo opportunities. Photographs and videos show him restrained on a fixed leash and made to interact with children and other zoo visitors.
The evidence submitted in the case indicates that Louie later spent many years without the companionship of another chimpanzee…
Chimpanzees are profoundly social beings. Martha Nussbaum, who submitted an amicus brief supporting the case, noted that they naturally live in communities that may include between 20 and 200 individuals, moving among different social subgroups and forming complex relationships. The DeYoung Prisoners, by contrast, are limited to their small group of seven—when they have access even to one another.
In December 2023, The Nonhuman Rights Project filed a habeas corpus complaint on their behalf.
Habeas corpus is the legal procedure through which a court examines whether an individual is being lawfully confined. The Nonhuman Rights Project asked the court to require the roadside zoo to justify the chimpanzees’ confinement and, ultimately, to order their transfer to a chimpanzee sanctuary accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.
The case does not claim that chimpanzees are human beings. Nor does it ask that chimpanzees receive every legal right possessed by humans.
It asks a narrower but fundamental question:
Can these chimpanzees be recognized as legal “persons” for purposes of habeas corpus—that is, are they entitled to ask a court to examine whether their confinement is lawful?…
Louie and the six other chimpanzees remain confined at the DeYoung Family Zoo. The Nonhuman Rights Project is calling for them to be transferred to an accredited sanctuary, where they could live in an environment suited to their social, physical, and psychological needs. SOURCE
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